


Hey, Doll

by tracinginthesand



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Darcy is Amazing, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, F/M, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Pining, Steve and Bucky make a friend, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-06-09 12:44:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6907792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tracinginthesand/pseuds/tracinginthesand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy gets a couple of super-solders. Steve and Bucky get another chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Livvy1800](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livvy1800/gifts).



> So this is for Livvy1800, who has the flu!

When Jane basically moved into Bruce’s lab, the two of them ascending to a spiritual plane of weaponized geekery on which they didn’t need words, just equations, she brought her assistant with her. Darcy insisted on not being left behind “this time.”

She realizes pretty quickly that she isn’t all that necessary to the workings of the Avengers. It’s hard to be bored anywhere in their orbit, but easy to feel like she isn’t contributing. She starts a master’s degree in something completely unrelated—comparative literature—at the New School, just for the fun of it. So she’s going on about lyric poetry and delving into Jane Austen novels while her roommates—compound mates?—are trying to save the world. She also—and she is irritably vague on the details of how it happened, it’s her life, and shouldn’t she have been even slightly on top of this—picks up a couple of super-soldiers.

Darcy likes them a lot, is the thing. Steve and Bucky. She’s up at all hours writing papers and reading books, and they don’t seem to sleep. So the first time they find her at the counter poring over some articles in the dead of night, Steve asks if it’s okay if they hang out in the same room, him and Bucky. He stresses Bucky’s name, like he’s trying to make a point about the haunted, empty-faced man next to him with the endless circles under his eyes.. And she says yes, because she can’t really think of why it wouldn’t be okay.

So then it becomes a thing. She studies late at night, and they come in. Talk quietly at the table behind her. Look at photo albums, sometimes, or sketchbooks. It feels a lot like undergrad. They are, weirdly, basically her age. After a few weeks of this, she brings her laptop to the table and sits with them. Forget trying not to intrude on their solitude, they’re basically stapled together at the hip. She’d have to be an idiot not to notice that, with all its implications.

They’re great, too. Steve is much slyer than anyone gives him credit for, and Bucky likes to be amused. They make each other laugh. Most of the others think it’s an impenetrable relationship, but to her it’s just the best friends thing. And the only two super-soldiers around thing. And the miracle that they’re both alive at all thing. But it’s not fundamentally exclusive. At least, not around her.

She starts sitting closer to them. They let her in immediately. Telling her stories. Steve lights up like a Christmas tree whenever Bucky contributes a new fact, a name, some kind of memory Steve didn’t put there. Bucky starts reading some of her books for her 19th century literature. They’re familiar to him. He used to read a lot. Out loud, to Steve, while he drew. Steve starts drawing again, at the table with them, late at night.

Darcy puts herself in unofficial charge of the broken time travelers. She took over their education with glee, sitting them down in front of the giant television every night to show them movies and television shows. She goes decade by decade, much more thoughtfully than the rest of the team managed to do. And she always stays around to explain things. She likes it. Likes being the one who knows the most about pop culture, when all her life she was the weird homeschooled kid who never listened to the right music or watched the right shows.

They start to go on food adventures on nights when Bucky is feeling hungry. He’ll always eat when food is put in front of him, but he isn’t actually hungry very often, so it’s a party, those nights. She introduces them to takeout sushi and pot noodles eaten over the sink. Steve teaches her to make chicken soup the right way. And Bucky does all the whisking when she bakes. A metal murder-arm has to be good for something. Somehow they’ve collected a keeper, and she’s got herself a pair of super-soldiers following her around.

 

Steve doesn’t remember when he and Bucky became Darcy Lewis’s own personal mission in life, but he doesn’t complain.

She goes out in public with them, risking the stares and the photographs, staying close to Bucky, because it turns out Darcy Lewis is what he needs to not panic or shut down in a crowd. She can bring him from 60 back to 0 in seconds. She starts going on about something, anything—romance novels, post-colonial literary criticism, kale—and he hardly ever understands her, she has to circle back to explain things so often Steve’s not sure she ever finishes a rant. But it works. Somehow. And he’s so grateful.

He asks Bucky about it, once, and he just shrugs with his flesh arm. (The metal arm does not shrug.) “If she’s talking about it, it’s got to be interesting.” Steve agrees.

But it’s torture. Steve and Bucky agree, mutually, that it is torture. In a shared look when Darcy leans up against Steve’s arm and twists her feet under Bucky’s thigh on the couch. A slight sigh when she starts turning up to movie nights in fuzzy pajama pants with cupcakes on them and baggy sweatshirts. Hair up in a messy bun. Thick-framed glasses on. Pink streak in her bangs. (“It’s not like I’m trying to impress faculty with my professionalism, Christ.”) Socks with sushi on them. And he only knows what sushi IS because of her. It’s cruel and unusual.

It’s nothing compared to what happens the first time they see her all dressed up.

Steve practically chokes. Bucky stares at her like she’s dangerous.

She’s wearing a dark red dress, tight on top and flaring out around her hips. It does everything for her eyes, and the rest of her. A flowered scarf around her neck, knee-high leather boots. Her hair is in loose ringlets. Her makeup is perfect Darcy, somehow understated and yet involving glitter.

“How do I look?” she says. “I think I look good. Do you think I look good? This is ridiculous. What am I doing?”

“Lookin’ good, doll,” Bucky says, easily, but Steve can’t be the only one of them noticing that he’s sitting so still he might as well be made entirely of metal.

“You think? You sure? Because if I don’t score tonight, I am going to blame you, Barnes,” she says, brandishing a finger at him. He grins, wide.

“If you don’t score tonight it’s ‘cause the sorry bastard’s dead.”

She beams, smoothing out her skirt. “What am I going to talk about? God, if he asks me what I do—Ugh. Okay. It’s fine. I’m fine. This is fine.”

“Hey, remember you can always say no,” Steve says. He’s an idiot. Shit.

“Yeah, Darce, you need an emergency, just say the word,” Bucky throws in. At least he’s not an idiot alone.

“Yeah, thanks _dads_. Don’t stay up too late.” She blows them a kiss and flies out.

There’s silence. Contemplative, mutual silence.

“I could kill him, make her think she’s been stood up,” Bucky offers.

“Bucky.”

“No, okay, not kill him. Just incapacitate him. A little. Temporarily.”

“Bucky.”

“I’m serious,” he says. Bucky would have gotten up to pace, way back, but now he stays still unless he has a reason to move, most times, so Steve gets up and walks around for him. Some of the tension in Bucky’s body dissipates as he watches. “Steve, it’s been months of this. What am I supposed to… How are we…”

Steve drops to one knee in front of Bucky and grabs his hands, both his hands. “I know.”

They agreed, a long time ago, back when they first got to know her, even before she started putting her arms around their waists and spending all her time with them, that they couldn’t. They were too much baggage, and anyway, how were they going to explain?

“It was pretty simple way back,” Bucky grouses.

“Yeah, Buck, _way back_ we were deviants.”

“We were classy about it!”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve mutters, kissing his lover’s knuckles. “Real classy.”

“She called us _dads_ ,” Bucky growls, shooting off the couch and ripping his hoodie off. “I’ll show her who’s a goddamn _dad_.”

“Bucky, the hell—? Sit your ass down, Sarge, we can’t do this. It’s not fair. We agreed it isn’t fair.”

“Yeah, keep talking like your heart’s not broke, Rogers, but I know you.” Bucky’s eyes are boring into his, glacial gray and Steve just crumples, sitting back on the floor.

“We can’t,” he says, picking at a stray thread on his distressed jeans. (More Darcy, calling up Levi’s and getting them to keep the store open late so Captain America could get some pants in exchange for pictures and autographs for the employees after. And, of course, the chance to say that Steve Rogers shopped there.) “We’re not her guys.”

“But she’s our girl.” The quiet truths are the hardest to hear. Steve looks up, and he’s not that surprised to feel the heat behind his eyes heralding tears.

“You think I don’t know that? I do. I know it every minute she’s been here. She’s the best. You’re the one who said we shouldn’t saddle her with us.”

“I was pretty fucked in the head about myself at that point,” Bucky says. “I mean, I still am.” He sinks down in front of the couch too, leaning back against it and pulling Steve into his arms. They don’t do this with other people around, even Darcy. It’s too raw, too new while they work their way through figuring out who they are now. Way back it was a game where the rules were self-loathing and agreed-upon manipulation, a bargain they made with themselves and each other. But they don’t need it any more, not after everything they’ve been through.

“I don’t want to hurt her,” Steve says. “I mean, hell, even physically I don’t want to hurt her.”

“This isn’t a Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex situation,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes. “You deal with me just fine.”

“Just fine?” Steve narrows his eyes, smirk tugging at his mouth. “Think I should try to raise my batting average there, pal.”

“Don’t distract me,” Bucky says, putting his hand on the center of Steve’s chest and tapping on his collarbone. He presses his cheek against Steve’s hair and sighs. “I think we could at least… invite her. Let her know it’s an option.”

“What, and have her avoid us forever? What’s that she’s always saying? ‘Don’t make it weird.’ This is the definition of making it weird. This situation is why that phrase was invented.”

“Come on, since when am I the hopeful one?” Bucky pets through Steve’s hair with the hand he secretly thinks of as his ‘good’ hand, the one that wasn’t put on for murder reasons. That hand is curled around Steve’s hip, cradling the enchanted body of the man he loves. “Don’t you think she should have the option?” He’s wheedling, but it’s for a good cause. “Making this decision for her isn’t respecting her autonomy.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Steve grumbles, into his shoulder.

“Yeah, you do. Because the other option is smiling at her wedding like proud older brothers when all we want is to drag the bride off and fuck her.”

“That’s horrifying, Bucky.”

“Welcome to the conversation, Steve. Glad you could make it.”

“So what do you think we’re supposed to do about this? Just drop it into conversation, ‘Oh, hey doll, so we used to fuck women together all the time way back, and we’d like to get back into the habit. You want in?’”

One of Bucky’s rare laughs vibrated against Steve’s ear. “I thought we could be a little more tactical than that. Ask her straight, like the forward-thinking and respectful gentlemen we are.”

“My head’s going to explode if we try that,” Steve says.

“Just think about it?” Bucky asks. He hates asking. Hates needing. Makes him feel helpless. “Steve, shit, I don’t want to lose her. We’re gonna, if she finds some asshole.”

“I know,” Steve says, lifting his head and kissing Bucky’s jaw. “I don’t know how we’re gonna pull this off.”

“How about a suck job? Always gets my brain workin’.”

“If it’ll keep you from going out and kidnapping her date,” Steve says, mock-put upon. He tugs on Bucky’s earlobe with his teeth.

“Is it really kidnapping if I never take him out of his apartment?” Bucky asks, already shifting Steve’s body off him and sliding down so he’s eye-level with Steve’s crotch. “Nah, I mean… get her thinking about it a little. Not come on to her, just… come on to each other. Around her. Let her see that. Figure it’s about time, anyway.” He looks up at Steve through his lashes.

“You askin’ me out, Barnes?”

“You sayin’ yes, Rogers?”

They don’t talk about the nightmares that wake them both in the middle of the night. They don’t talk about the haunting past, or about how they know there isn’t any good way to ask her to give up more than she already has. The fact is, they don’t know if she’ll say yes, and not knowing is all that keeps them honest, keeps them sane.

Because Bucky and Steve are sure of each other in this life, and no one else. No one at all. Not even fascinating, precious, glorious Darcy Lewis, with her incomprehensible literary references and her long sweaters.

They do ask FRIDAY for a little help, help she graciously gives.

 

When Darcy comes in that night, contentedly buzzing from a perfectly lovely date with a cute enough guy who was interested in her for her, (she didn’t mention her address or her friends, just said she does research in psychology and history and works with veterans and left it at that) she goes to see if the guys are still awake. She wants to tell them, or maybe to curl up with mindless TV on until she falls asleep on one or another of their chests. Maybe Bucky, tonight. He seemed a little weird as she was leaving, and—

She doesn’t expect to walk in on them making out on the floor, Steve’s hand down Bucky’s yoga pants. Not that it was completely out of the realm of possibility—or fantasy, but. There is a difference.

“Hi—Oh.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the amazing comments on the first chapter! There is definitely more where that came from--have a little bit of it now!

Everything is fine.

Darcy is positive about that. It is all definitely fine. She had her suspicions, and it’s really good that they have each other—and sometimes getting confirmation of a long-held theory can have a let-down associated with with, she knows that—and they obviously didn’t mean to be walked in on, so she should _really_ stop looking. She should stop looking at Steve up on his knees and braced on one hand over Bucky, his hand—all she can see at this angle is Steve’s ass and Bucky’s face. Bucky’s metal hand on Steve’s waist. But these are her friends.

Her very hot friends. Bucky’s lips are swollen and rosy. She’s so busy staring at them, it’s a shock when they move.

“Hey, doll,” Bucky says. His voice is gravelly. It bypasses her ears and goes straight to her crotch. She’s dimly aware her jaw might be hanging open. But it’s fine. Really fine. She should go away now.

Steve’s tousled head twists around, and he’s about as red in the face as she feels.

“Darcy, shit, I’m sorry.” he goes to disengage his hand from what it is obviously and very unfairly doing—okay, get a grip, Lewis—okay, bad choice of words, Lewis—

She holds up her hands, purse strap falling off the slippery material of her dress and getting caught up with a jerk on the hinge of her elbow.

“No! No. It’s fine. It’s _so_ fine. I mean, no. I mean, yes. This is, yes, it’s all good. I didn’t think you’d be up! Or yes, up, but not, not this up. Obviously.”

“How was your date?” Bucky sounds totally content with this turn of events, like he isn’t even annoyed his hand job was rudely interrupted. And maybe he isn’t. Maybe it happens often enough, Steve’s big hand slipping under the waistband of the loose, ultra-soft pants Bucky wears at night, the fabric and the touch a reminder that he can stand down. His whole life a reminder that he can stand down, now. She knows that about him, knows how much he’s suffered and how far he’s come, and she still just basically wants to smack him in the face with his own murder-arm right now.

“How was my _date_?” she repeats, shock coalescing with the arousal she’s feeling. They are a compelling mental image. Steve hasn’t quite gotten his hand out of Bucky’s pants, the snap in her voice startling him a little.

“Yeah. C’mon. Tell us all about it.” Bucky Barnes, tucking his hands behind his head with a smile. Steve’s hand still gripping his cock is the only reason she can’t see it right now.

(She did see it, once. Walked into their bathroom to grab something really fast, not knowing then that Bucky despises being closed into showers, so one half of their giant en suite is this room with gentle rainfall heads and a bench, and only a chest-high wall running half the width of it. Bucky was not behind the wall. Their stuttered, mutual laughter chased her away.)

She wants to see it again. But she shoves that thought deep down. He’s laughing at her again. He must be. At poor little Darcy who didn’t know what was going on right under her nose while she cuddled into him, or let her hand linger on his waist. He was taken the whole time, by the other guy she let herself get so close to. She never thought they would keep something like that from her. She never thought they wouldn’t trust her enough. And it makes her mad. Arch. Hurt. Darcy never entertained the possibility that they could hurt her like this.

“No.” She lifts her chin, looking down her nose at him, putting her purse strap back on her shoulder with a jerky flourish. “I’m not going to tell you about my date. When Steve Rogers is giving you a hand job, you focus.” She turns on her heel, tossing her hair. For once, a dramatic exit goes perfectly. No tripping, no waiting for the elevator. Her boots make satisfying, echoing clunks on the stairs as she stalks to her room.

Darcy isn’t sure why she wants to cry. So many emotions are jammed up in her at once. She tries to tell herself it really is just because of the not knowing. They kept it from her. She isn’t sure she blames them, but isn’t sure she doesn’t. They’ve been friends for so many months. And she was flinging herself at them for a while. At Bucky, anyway. She didn’t think any woman born on this side of 1920 could do for Steve, and still doesn’t. Maybe that’s why not. Maybe…

She feels humiliated, and they’re the ones who got walked in on. And she wishes she could have just kept watching. Because underneath the feelings of betrayal is shame over how good they looked together. So comfortable. Darcy’s never felt like that with another person. It stands to reason, she thinks, dropping her “date” purse on her dresser. She sheds her clothes as fast as possible, wishing she could take the last ten minutes with them. Bucky and Steve are closer than any two humans have any right to be. It was idiotic to think she could get in between that.

Although, the idea of being in between that…

It would be warm. Warmer than anything she’s ever felt. She steps out of her boots. Faceplants on her bed. Groans. A lot.

 

Once again, a mutual, contemplative silence reigns in the open-plan living room.

“That went different in my head.”

“No, Bucky, really? I told you we were going to make it weird.”

“Pretty hot when she told me to focus on your hand, though.”

“Bucky.”

“All right, all right. I’m going.”

 

She needs to do something to unwind. Her date was nice, she can focus on her date. Eli. Sweet man. Dear god, she sounds like a 90-year-old. Must be because she’s spending so much time with a couple of old men. And isn’t that just the fucking worst part? They’re her friends, she has them in her head now. So she’s grabbing her vibrator and focusing on her date, who is apparently a sweet man, according to her brain.

He had a nice voice. Not too deep, easy to listen to. Full of stories about his students at NYU. Yeah, that’s the stuff mind-wiping orgasms are made of.

So she flicks on her wand and tries not to think about anything at all. It doesn’t work, mostly because she keeps seeing Bucky’s lips, the light in Steve’s eyes when she snapped at Bucky. The very appreciative light. Who ever would have thought that about them?

She would have. She did. And she’s right. That makes her back arch. Right about what feels good to them.

Bucky’s mouth—a gasp.

Steve’s hips, but without the tight denim—her head jerks, she can’t press her vibrator against her clit hard enough.

All those hands, reaching for her—the pulsing she wants to just dive into forever, knowing it’s transitory.

Her door (never latched completely in her haste, leaving the universal Tower-wide signal for “come on in” on) opening—Bucky’s voice, quiet and slightly ashamed, but she can’t quite hear all the nuance in her current situation.

“Hey, doll”—and who said this night couldn’t get any more embarrassing? She comes, staring at him. For the first time in her life, she sees what it looks like when Bucky Barnes is completely out of his depth, and possibly scared.

His stillness and her tiny shriek dance together in the half-light.

Darcy clicks the vibrator off and puts it to the side. The most embarrassing thing about it is that she has her covers pulled up to her chin. She wanted the warmth, wanted to pretend it was two panting, unstoppable men. It would almost be better to get caught completely naked and splayed out, she thinks, vaguely. It was a good orgasm. Bucky is staring.

“I came to say I’m sorry,” he says, sounding more than a little lost.

She wants to respond thoughtfully, but then again, there are times in life when opportunity just explodes onto the scene.

“I’m sorry I came,” she says, and the smile on his face, caught off-guard and yet pained because of a pun, is all she longs for in life on a regular basis.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Darcy communicate in an adult fashion. And then they communicate in a less adult fashion. 
> 
> (And it's now not a complete work, not even a little bit. It never was, obviously.)

Bucky has to take deep breaths, because it’s that or drop to his knees and beg Darcy for her love like he never begged Hydra for his life. She just popped one off staring right at him. Her knees shifted the thick comforter she sometimes drags out to cuddle under with the two of them when she did. He wonders if it smells like them. If she likes that. Who invented this woman? Who can he thank?

The joke broke the ice, but they’re still in freezing water and he doesn’t know how to get them out of it. Doesn’t know where land is. This is Steve’s job, Steve’s part of things. Bucky doesn’t have a direction without him, never did. It took the United States Army and then the most evil technology Hydra could come up to replace the control one scrawny blond exercised over one James Buchanan Barnes. It’s compelling and a little frightening to realize he could easily put Darcy into that same category. He swallows. She’s so red in the face.

What would Steve do? Where would he aim them? Towards the truth. Always the truth with that pain in the ass.

He’s opening his mouth to say something when Darcy beats him to it.

“Can you turn around? I need to put a shirt on.”

He complies instantly, like she’s got him activated, putting a hand over his eyes for good measure. A soft laugh from behind him. The relief of it is all that gets some of the tension out of his back, although it does nothing for the tension in his dick. He’s considering punching himself in the damn thing, never mind how long it took for his libido to thaw. It would be nice to blame all this on inconvenient arousal, but he started to warm up to Darcy before his blood flow rediscovered erections.

The rustling behind him stops, and a light clicks on. “You can turn around now,” she says, so shyly. He turns around as she’s just tucking some of her long hair behind her ear. The little carding motions of her fingers are so vulnerable. She’s sitting up in her bed, comforter tucked around her waist. Longt-shirt with the collar cut out, a little wrinkled. He’s never seen a woman like this. Never saw one like her, period. Women he knew, they were performing every second. He knew it, and he hated it, which is why he probably had so much luck with them. And he’d eat a girl out for the better part of an hour and never ask for a thing in return. That made a fellow popular no matter the era.

“So I came to apologize. That okay?”

Darcy hardly ever pretends. It doesn’t occur to her. So if she’s sitting there, nodding, folding in on herself, she’s telling him some kind of truth with her body that she hasn’t gotten to with her mouth yet. He’s got to listen. He sits down on the floor, so she’s looking down at him in surprise. Bucky crosses his legs and leans his forearms on his thighs. He rubs the back of his neck, ordering his thoughts in a way he never had to before his brain was forcibly rewired.

“I’m really sorry for being an asshole down there. For acting like that was something you wanted to see.”

Darcy snorts. “Obviously it was something I _liked_ seeing.”

A thrill goes through his black and twisted heart. “That… that was…me just now? Us?”

She nods, beet red and resolute. He coughs, throat suddenly tight.

“Thanks. I mean, hell. That’s a hell of a compliment. But that doesn’t mean we should’a done it.”

“Done what—Wait.” Her eyes are narrowing. “Did you engineer that? You—”

“Asked FRIDAY to tell us when you got home, yeah.”

She inhales sharply. He risks a look up from his metal fingers. Her eyes are dilated and her mouth is tense. “You wanted to get caught. By me. You fucking assholes!” She looks like she wants to get up and throttle him, but she justs balls her hand into a fist and hits her own knee with it instead. After a second, he gets it. She’d come over there and beat him, but she didn’t put underwear on. “What, just wanted to see how I’d react? Consent is important, Barnes, you can’t just reel someone into your freaky sex games. Especially someone who doesn’t know you’re together in the first place!”

“It got out of hand,” he says. “We wanted you to know we were… We wanted you to know we _are_ , but without having to, you know. Tell you.”

She crosses her arms, lowering her head. A few seconds later, he hears a sniffling noise.

“Shit, no, Darcy—”

“You could have trusted me,” she says, voice shaking. “You always could have trusted me.”

“We did, we _do_ ,” he tells her, lunging across the floor until he’s on one knee in front of the bed, hands fists in the covers. “Don’t cry, please don’t. We’re idiots. I’m an idiot. Punch me. Hit me with a pillow or somethin’. Come on, you’ll feel better.”

Her teary gaze is shocked. “I’m not going to _hit_ you, what’s wrong with you?”

He shrugs. “Been hit worse.”

She shakes her head, looking disgusted with the entire universe, wiping under her eyes with sides of her palms. “Would never hit you. Never have to worry about that,” she says, fiercely. “Even if you are a fucking asshole.” When Darcy comes up with an epithet that fits her mood, she really commits. He’ll be whatever she wants to call him as long as she’s still talking to him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, plaintive, and he can see her lower lip tremble.

“I have no idea what’s going on in that head of yours,” he says, “but that’s not new. Just… will you believe me if I tell you it wasn’t about you? Swear on my mother’s grave.”

“I’ll believe you if you tell me why.” She lifts her chin. “I don’t hide anything from you, even stuff I really should, I guess, because you’re my best friends here. Which makes you my best friends anywhere.”

“I don’t know how to explain it, hell, I don’t remember half of it,” he says, feeling the familiar panic start up in him, at disappointing someone he’s crazy about because he isn’t all there.

And Darcy sees the trembling start across his shoulders, and—fuckall if he deserves this—puts her hand on his wrist. He focuses on her manicure, forcing one deep breath after another into his lungs. He looks up at her when he can, and her expression is pitiless, but merciless. She knows what she wants, and it’s his side of the story. She scoots over so she’s sitting against the headboard, close to the wall. She pats the mattress next to her.

He climbs up like a cat unsure of the terrain, settling like at any moment he’ll have to run. They’re not making eye contact. At least it’s his good shoulder closer to her, good hand resting on the bed between them, drawing circles on the embroidered duvet cover.

“Never told this story to anyone,” he says. “Not sure I’m going to get it right.”

“I don’t care about right,” she tells him. “I care about truth.”

“Truths I got. Somewhere.

He flexes his bad hand, watching all the articulated plates moving over each other and sighs. The weight of it pulls all the time, reminds him where he’s been, almost pressing the past right out of him. But he can use it to hold on, too.

“Didn’t know what love was, way back. Because it couldn’t be what I felt for my best pal, so it had to be something else. You don’t know, it was a different world. A terrible world. Terrifying. Living behind enemy lines all the time. Couldn’t let a look go, couldn’t make a sound. Everyone could be an informant, anyone could ruin your life. Some guys escaped. To the Village, or to Hollywood. Some guys just gave up, turned on each other when it got too hard. Steve an’ me… we couldn’t figure out what to do. Didn’t know what we were, hardly had the nerve to mess around.

“But then there was this girl lived around the corner from us. Minnie. And didn’t she hate that fuckin’ mouse. I went around with her, and lots of girls. Never fucked ‘em, never asked for a damn thing, just gave. But she saw a lot, saw a lot of _us_ which I’d rather she didn’t.”

Darcy makes a pained little noise, but the tears are drying on her face. He’s putting it down to mental images, which doesn’t make him feel so sad.

“She caught us. Cracked her gum, it sounded like a bullet to us. But instead of going running off, she just licked her damn lips, at both of us. Checked Steve out but good. I thought I was going to pass out from the fear. So Steve, he cocks his hip and glares at her and says, ‘Hey, doll. We were just passing the time, waiting for you.’”

Darcy squeaks, and he risks a look. She’s got a hand over her mouth, staring at him. He grins. “We were two seventeen-year-olds with no sense and less caution, and in that moment we kinda…figured out our shtick. We could touch each other as much as we wanted with a dame around, and they got off on it. And we’d make sure they had a hell of a good time in the process. It got around, Bucky Barnes’s weird little friend wasn’t so weird any more. It got to be a game. All those girls who wouldn’t give him the time of day, but wanted me—we’d get busy and all a’sudden they’d take a look at what he was packing and go nuts.” He shakes his head. “We were awful.”

“But hot,” she says, voice hoarse.

“We were a pair of dirty little fucks looking for a way to not be queer for each other,” he says, baldly. “We hated ourselves, so we dragged women into it to make ourselves feel better. We didn’t care about them.”

“It doesn’t sound like they cared a whole lot about you either,” Darcy points out. He blinks down at her. She shrugs in the combative way that means she’s convinced of her rightness. “You weren’t in charge of them.”

“What about all that…” he waves his hand. “Consent. And power. Stuff. You were just yelling at me about that.”

“It sounds to me like they were consenting. And like they could have gotten you in a lot of trouble without risking a single flat-ironed hair on their heads.”

“Still wasn’t right.”

“Women are, in fact, capable of consenting to sex. And it sounds like they did.” She sounds grumpy about that. It gives him hope.

“Enthusiastically,” Bucky tells her, a little bit of the smug kid back in his voice. She glares at him. The shame comes back, and he ducks his head. After a minute, she asks him questions she deserves to ask, and he’s so relieved he has the good answers.

“Did you ever do anything anyone didn’t want? Ever hurt anyone?”

“Only each other,” he says, quietly.

“Are you still hurting each other?”

“Trying our damnedest not to. Not sure we succeed all the time,” he admits.

“So I’m not going to yell at you about it,” she says. “Even if it sounds like you were trying to—what? Convince me not to tell or something? I’m _not_ Minnie Mouse, or whatever her name was.”

He’s taken aback by the venom in her tone. “What’s the matter?”

“I just don’t like thinking of you being taken advantage of,” she says, pulling at a stray thread on the duvet cover.

Bucky puts his hand over hers, squeezes to make her understand. It’s his good hand, so he’s not scared of it. “It wasn’t like that, not at all. Honestly, we were… it was just stupid, okay? And we’re still fucked up about being how we are and it being okay. And about you.”

“About me?” All the progress he made evaporates in a hot second, she’s tensing up hard, half a second away from pulling back—

“We like you,” he blurts out. He doesn’t mean to. It’s just sometimes Darcy has to be shocked into underthinking things so he can figure out how the hell she’s feeling. For a split second, someone’s turned all the lights on inside her, and then the walls come down so he can’t see it any more.

“You don’t have to tell me that,” she says, wrapping her arms around her knees. “You don’t have to… convince me not to tell anyone. That’s not how it is any more.”

The possibility of having only made it worse by telling her all that stuff is what sets his tongue loose, panic a powerful motivator. “You gotta listen to me,” he says, shifting around so he’s sitting back on his ankles at her side, hunched down so he’s as small as possible, metal arm crammed half behind him. He just wants to be the good parts of himself for her, and there are too few of them, he knows.

She stares up at him, so much anxiety in her eyes, and this is the Darcy he met first, hunched over her laptop late at night, trying to be the best. This is the Darcy he didn’t know he was falling for, too wrapped up in his own pain. The one who’s unsure as well as sassy, and doesn’t seem to mind when she’s both.

“You gotta understand.” He feels the whispering of control words, teasing at his brain, telling him he’s not to be trusted so he should just be a good boy and take the programming again, it’s all he’s good for now. But her eyes are confused, searching his, like he hasn’t found the right words yet. He’s determined to do it, even if he has to humiliate himself, blow everything apart. He’s hanging off a train again, and this time Steve’s not even here to watch him fall.

“We were a couple of Frankenstein's monsters, and you’re—you’re the lightning. You reminded us that we could be Steve and Bucky, a couple guys in their late twenties from Brooklyn who’d been in the war. That’s all we had to be with you. You treat us right. And we… we want to treat you right, too. Is what I’m sayin’. Me and Steve.”

Darcy looks more shocked now than she did to find them making out on the floor. He’s more than a little surprised, himself. She stares at him, and he can see the wheels turning. Like the prize wheel on the boardwalk at Coney Island, way back. The one where you knew it was rigged, you knew the thing was weighted. But you paid your money and took your spin anyway, because _what if_ it landed? _What if_ it came up in your favor? And Bucky’s not a man who believes it ever will again. Not because he’s cynical. He knows he’s used up his luck.

So he waits. He’s good at being still, now. But then, he wasn’t ever quite as fidgety as his ma thought. Just burning up the excess energy before he got to Steve’s side. And now Darcy’s.

“You _and_ Steve,” she says, finally, questioningly. “He also…okay, I thought you might have liked me a little, but him? He only has eyes for you.”

“His eyes are bigger than his stomach,” Bucky says. “At least, back before he had a super-metabolism installed. Point stands. He’s crazy about you.”

“And you’re…?”

“Crazy about you.”

“I really don’t know what to say, Bucky.” She shifts a little, and he can’t tell if she meant to go towards him or away from him.

“Tonight was the stupidest thing I did since I showed up at the draft board when they told me to, instead of grabbing Steve and running to Canada. I swear we won’t pull it again.”

She smirks in passing, and so does he, and they share the _yes, we’re twelve years old_ look, and then she blushes and looks away, and that’s bad. That’s real bad. Her hand comes up to rub the side of her neck, her brow furrows, and that’s worse.

“Is this because I went on a date tonight?”

Damn. Loving a brilliant woman’s gonna get you every time.

“Not really…”

“It is, isn’t it. You were fine with just letting things maunder on, but then I went out with Eli, and you—”

“Oh, it’s ‘Eli,’ now?”

“Yes!” She says, straightening up and glaring at him. “I had a really nice time with him, and then came home and my two best friends were fucking on the floor—”

“We were not fucking—”

“And _then_ you interrupt me while I’m getting myself off thinking about my date—”

Bucky might growl. It doesn’t seem to phase her one bit. Christ, he’s in trouble.

“And now you’re telling me you have a crush on me! Both of you! You’re just trying to keep me for yourselves!”

“Damn _right_ we are,” he says, and his agreement stops her in her tracks. “Funny how your story's changing all a'sudden. Doll, if you were thinking about _him_ when you came so pretty, I’ll go with you on your next date and roll the condom on him myself.”

“Well, _that_ seems like your specialty!”

She’s stretched over on her side now, there’s about six inches between their faces, and even that feels like too much. She’s breathing hard, he’s suddenly grinning like a madman from the fight. Darcy bites her lip, eyes flicking between his eyes and his mouth. Her tongue darts out, and he jerks toward it, but halts himself.

He thinks he hears her say “Oh, what the hell,” before she lunges for him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smooching and confusion! (The name of all my bands.)

Bucky’s mouth is hot on hers, spit-slick and messy.

This is also fine. Better than fine. Holy god levels of fine.

It hasn’t been like this—she hasn’t had sex properly in—she doesn’t want to think about it right now. He isn’t even the first guy she’s kissed tonight, and she’s done for. Bucky Barnes: 1; Darcy’s entire sexual history: 0.

She’s crammed up against him, gripping his metal shoulder. She wants to lick it. She wonders if he has feeling in it. She wonders if she’s sick in the head, because the idea that he doesn’t is just as compelling as the idea that he does.Everything he told her is careening around her brain like Wyle E. Coyote on an ACME rocket. She can’t pin any one thought down. His teeth are tugging on her bottom lip, though, and really, how many thoughts does a person need?

His metal hand is on her waist. It’s thicker all over than a normal hand, and she can tell he’s trying to keep it away from her as much as he can. Just the suggestion of its weight is making her want to moan. Much like the rest of him. He’s solid and muscled all over, holding her tight. She can’t stop rubbing her thighs together in the duvet confining her hips, she’s so wet.

When they pull back, at the very same time, his eyes are glassy and his lips are swollen red. They’re both a little stunned, she can tell.

“That’s some kiss, Lewis,” he gets out, with effort.

“Thanks, Barnes.”

“This night’s going all backwards,” he says. Hitches her up a little, so she’s sitting across his thighs. She can feel feel cool air on her ass, suddenly, and from the look on his face, he’s noticed, too. “Jesus,” he mutters, leaning his forehead against hers. She strokes his hair with hands that are absolutely _not_ shaking, thank you. The soft material under her thighs isn’t winding her up so that she can’t think, except it is. She can feel his erection against the side of her leg, a bulge she wants to explore The awareness of being half-naked on his lap, knowing she _could_ spread her legs and even though his metal hand is now braced on the mattress behind him it doesn’t _have_ to be, and…

He turns his head and kisses her palm, not taking his eyes away from hers. She’s hot all over, and the worn cotton of her t-shirt is like sandpaper on her hard nipples. He could see that too, if he bothered to look, but they’re too busy staring into each other’s eyes in the very definition of moonstruck.

“I don’t—”

“We should—”

Embarrassed, half-life laughter. Now she doesn’t want to slide off his lap because she’s afraid of the wet spot she might have left behind. She’s not sure she wants evidence of this, suddenly, and it’s only partially because he put 1930s queer paranoia into her head. He’s looking at her the same way, like he’s found things here he didn’t mean to. She bites her lips, and he bends his head, brushing their mouths together so gently, now. Maybe sadly, but that’s not right, either. Darcy throws an arm around his shoulders, the other tightening in his hair. Clinging. He hugs her back with his right arm. They’re both spinning out, falling off the wrong side of this night.

She pulls back. “It’s okay,” she says. She tugs on his hair a little. “It’s okay. I promise. It’ll be okay. What I tell you three times is true.” He nods, swallows. They’re the same age. She’s never felt this particular thing this particular way. It doesn’t seem he has, either. It’s comforting. Although—what does it say about—

“Steve,” he says, every muscle she can feel pressed up against her tensing. She looks at the door, in case he’s standing right there. But no. That would be too convenient. Although the idea of him stalking over to them, surrounding them—she shivers.

The lust is breaking off in huge chunks of ice around them, falling into the ocean. Threatening the polar bears. Okay, so she’s got too many endorphins in her system for a sustained metaphor. She slides off him. He gets off the bed gingerly, like there are landmines in the floor.

“We’ll talk, right?” he asks her. She nods, although right now she has no idea what they’ll say.

“I should sleep,” she says, very grateful for words of one syllable stringing themselves together in at least a marginally coherent fashion by themselves, because she has no idea what to say. He closes the door with a soft click.

She falls back on her bed and asks Friday to turn down the temperature in the room. She can’t feel so hot any more. It’s really not a good idea. There’s a text on her phone from Eli, telling her what a good time he had. It grounds her, like ice water in her face. Because real life is out there somewhere. The real life that, at some point, Darcy Lewis is going to find herself ejected into.

 _Me too ;-)_ , she sends back. Because she did. And because…simple. It’s okay for some things to be simple.


	5. Chapter 5

“What happened?” Steve isn’t sure what outcome he’s hoping for, when Bucky comes down the stairs. He’s crazy about Darcy, but he and Bucky are only pale shadows of what they used to be, and they never tried doing this particular thing this particular way before.

Bucky coming down the stairs looking like he’s just run over someone’s dog doesn’t bode well. His body language screams nervous guilt, and for one flash of chill reservation, Steve honestly wonders if Bucky snapped and killed her. (Steve is not blinded with love, convinced of Bucky’s gentleness, contrary to public opinion. He is exquisitely aware of what Bucky can and will do if he has to. The others all know Bucky as the Winter Soldier, the one who kills because he doesn’t have a choice. Steve knew the Army sniper willing and able to deal out death at the end of a rifle sight.) He dismisses it. Bucky having just murdered someone he loves would look completely different from this. Bucky is fidgeting, which is new for the now-Bucky.

“I kissed her, Rogers.” Bucky drops down next to Steve, practically in tears. “I can’t blame this fuckup on Hydra. This one’s all me.”

It feels like a punch to the gut. No good reason for it, except this kind of thing hasn’t happened in so long that Steve wonders if he’s lost the knack for sharing Bucky in the first place. Or if he only had it because that was the only way to have Bucky at all. He leans forward with his forearms on his knees, and stares at his hands, thinking his way through it.

“You gotta say something, Steve,” Bucky whispers. “I’m going out of my skull, here.”

“That was the goal,” finally. “To kiss her.”

“ _With you_ ,” Bucky says. “Not, y’know, after we’re sniping at each other because of why she’s working herself over when I walked in.”

“Better run this whole op by me. Please.”

He’s grinning despite himself by the end of Bucky’s recounting. “Isn’t she a bit of terrific.”

Bucky groans, rubbing his forehead with his hand. I got up there and—I don’t know got into me. We were talking, and I told her about what…what we used to get up to, you know, with the girls, and then she was talking about that guy she saw tonight. Impulsive and stuped and we were just going back and forth so fast. I know it was the wrong thing,” he growls, words tripping over themselves like he can outpace Steve’s desire to forgive him. Fat chance. “Don’t just let me of the hook, Jesus.”

“It’s not like I’m thrilled.” Steve leans his head back. “Good kiss?”

“Hell,” Bucky says. A little tentative, like he’s not sure of his welcome, he moves a little closer to Steve’s side. “Just sad you weren’t there.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Do you think she’s going to take us up on it?”

“I don’t know if she’s ever going to speak to either of us again.” Steve takes Bucky’s hand in his, tracing the seams in the metal. “But she’s probably not going to call you ‘dad’ again any time soon.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy goes to someone for advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know you're about to revolt from a tragic lack of smut. It's going to happen, I promise!
> 
> Also, left a huge and kind of involved Easter Egg involving May's (completely made up by me) former career. This is the Marisa Tomei May, though, for everyone playing along at home.

Somehow, even though everything should go back to normal, it doesn’t. Everything got tangled up in Darcy’s head. She promised Bucky they would talk. And they will. But not now. She keeps telling herself she doesn’t have time. She has final papers to worry about, long ones, with more sources and footnotes than she ever needed in PoliSci. Darcy wants to run them by her friends, her now-absent friends. Or, well, she’s the absent one, because she has abandoned the main room at night. And now they have to catch up on the future by themselves.

She starts haunting coffeeshops in the village. A change of scene is important when trying to focus. Right, she has definitely heard that piece of advice before. She misses the late nights in the Tower, misses movie nights. But she doesn’t know what to do. Everything seems complicated and loaded now, and she’s not sure what she wanted in the first place. How could she have thought about coming between them, even before she knew they were together? But did she really think about it? Steve was always there in her crush on Bucky, always those bright blue eyes to meet over his shoulder or the top of his head. And how unfair was _that_ , relegating him to the backseat in his best friend’s life?

Bucky follows her one day. Sits with his cap pulled down over his eyes in the corner of her coffeeshop. Or the NYU library, a couple of times. She doesn’t know how he gets in and, frankly, doesn’t really want to. Darcy pushes that whole night to the back of her mind like none of it ever happened. Including being friends with them. If she’s going to be honest with herself—and she _is_ , never mind how attractive the alternative might be—they were never only friends. It was tinged with the undefined hope of something more, and that’s a hard thing to get over.

She goes on another date with Eli, and then another. It doesn’t go anywhere, even though he’s the type of guy and she’s in the time of life where she supposes it should. If she had normal friends, they would tell her he’s a catch, maybe. But she doesn’t. She has—had?—a couple of time travelers and an assassin and a couple of quantum physicists and Tony Stark.

And May Parker, actually, who drops by now and then with Peter. May, glamorous and cozy all at the same time, who laughs off Tony’s flirting like she’s been coated in sleaze-repellent and always has a supportive brush for someone’s arm. So Darcy shoots her an email and asks if they can go for coffee. Of course, because she is a wonderful human being, May agrees immediately.

They find a table in a public “urban oasis” space in the East 40s. It’s secluded enough that they don’t have to use fake names, but she can still feel some anonymity cloaking her.

Small talk passes easily between them for a few minutes. May wants to know all about graduate school. She’s thinking about going back herself, once Peter is in college. Darcy finds she can wax poetic about it, which is nice, because lately she hasn’t felt enthusiastic about anything.

“I’m thinking about moving out of Stark Tower,” Darcy blurts out, during a lull in their gossip about Natasha and some ballet dancer she’s been seeing.

It’s good that May’s used to dealing with teenage-level dramatics, Darcy thinks, vaguely, because this is going to be a doozy.

There is a pause. “Boy trouble?” May ventures, already leaning back and switching gears into _don’t give me shit, kid_ , mode. Which is strange, because Darcy’s always been the one handing that look out—to Jane, to her sister, to her mother, on occasion. It’s almost comforting.

“How did you know?”

“Well, the last time I dropped by you were attached at the hip to Captain America and his tall, dark, and homicidal friend, and you were all giggling about something. Now Peter tells me they’re moping and you’re nowhere to be found. I wasn’t born yesterday.” She shrugs, crystal earrings catching the watery sunlight.

“Neither were they,” Darcy mutters.

“Come on, you don’t like older men?” May grins at the scandalized look on Darcy’s face. “All right, _much_ older.”

“It’s not that. Okay, it is that. But not really that.”

May’s sympathy is aggressive. Challenging. _Cite your source_ , Darcy tells herself. She takes a deep breath and tells May everything. By the end of the story, she’s blushing and May has a manicured hand clamped over her mouth. Her eyes are shining above it, and Darcy thinks she might be laughing. She sobers considerably when Darcy winds down. “And that was a week ago, and I haven’t talked to them and I don’t know what to do.”

“So you’re thinking about upending your entire life because of them?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Darcy can feel long-buried resentment rumbling ino gear. “I just—my whole life I’ve been following people around while they deal with more important stuff than me. My parents dragged me around on their archeological digs, but basically left me alone unless I fell down a Viking well or had a question one of their graduate students couldn’t be badgered into answering. Jane loves me, but she’s more interested in finding the expressway to her literal god of a boyfriend. And in the beginning it was great, being the one Steve and Bucky relied on, trusted, but I don’t want to be some kind of weird sex therapy for them while they work their shit out and then go save the world some more, while I’m stuck with…romantic empty nest syndrome!” She rips the corrugated protector off her cup with savage ferocity.

“Besides,” she continues, suddenly feeling very small and tired, “I don’t think it would be the kind of thing that lasts. They clearly have issues they need to work out.”

“They aren’t the only ones,” May says. She leans forward and puts her hand on Darcy’s wrist across the table before Darcy can bristle. “Darcy, look. You’re very smart, and I know you’re trying to protect yourself, and your life, and that’s a very smart thing to do. So I’m going to make the case for the other side, okay?”

Darcy is apprehensive. But she nods anyway.

“When I was your age, I was working on _The Sun Also Sets_ , this ridiculous soap opera, doing costume ‘design’ which was more like being a therapist for a bunch of insecure actresses while I convinced them they looked beautiful in real late-90s nightmares of fashion, believe me. I loved it. Partying with Ben on the weekends. And then I got the worst phone call of my life. My brother was dead in a plane crash, and I was Peter’s legal guardian. The lawyers really wanted me to let myself off the hook, Mary’s parents sued for custody, Ben wasn’t even sure about it. I remember him asking if I knew what I was doing, and I told him we were going to be a family, me and Peter, and was he in or not, because there were only the two choices available.” She shrugs. “He brought me home an engagement ring the next night. I wore it to the custody meeting and walked out with a little kid on my hip. I didn’t even babysit when I was a teenager, but I knew something. You don’t want to pass things up because they don’t fit with your life-concept, is what I’m saying. Because you don’t know where it’s going to land you.”

Darcy blinks. “That’s not what I thought you were going to say.”

“Are you serious? I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Well, maybe a kid with a slower metabolism who didn’t try to get himself killed quite so often, but they all tell me the teenage years are the hardest.”

“But what if I lose them?” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Darcy knows how stupid they are. This woman has lost. The love of her life, if the gossip around the Tower is to be believed.

May just looks out over the day, at the few business suits scattered around the plaza and the homeless guy slumped in the opposite corner. She worries the engagement ring on her finger, twisting it around and around. “You can always lose someone. Having them is the important part. Especially,” her face switches into another gear—Darcy can tell she wasn’t supposed to see that faraway, wistful misery in May’s eyes—“when they look like that. Darcy, honestly, if they propositioned me like that, I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed for the last week.”

Darcy is going red again. She can just tell.

“So you think I should…”

“Get on with getting on that? Yes.”

“It’s just a really unsual situation and I’m not sure how to handle it.”

May just laughs. “What about your life has been usual for the last few years?”

Darcy concedes the point.

“And how have you handled things so far?”

“Well… I mostly do what I want about it and things work out.”

May huffs and shrugs a shoulder with her hand palm up. “Why fix what isn’t broken? Slinking around like you’ve done something wrong clearly isn’t you. Just go for it.”

“That’s your advice.”

“That’s my advice. You’re a grown-ass woman, the year is 2016, you can just tell them what you want and go from there. They might want those things, or other things, and you just sort it out as best you can. There aren’t any rules for you.”


End file.
